Top Tips for Complex Governance Practitioners and Process Stewards

1. Start with relationships

"You couldn't design this from the start. It's had to come out of conversation and relationship." Leah Black, RFF

It can be tempting to jump into designing roles or decision-making processes- but the strongest foundations are relational. Focus on building enough trust for hard conversations, and shape context-specific structures rooted in those relationships. Where you've inherited problematic structures, focus on building relational capacity in the system before interrogating and redesigning them. You might start with roles and processes that are 'good enough for now'; be prepared to revisit these when people are ready to go deeper.

• In his work at POP, Matt Bell describes the importance of building relationships before scaling any formal decision-making. He and colleagues drew inspiration from The Community Weaving Handbook and Network Weaver to centre relationships and belonging.
• Leah at the Regenerative Futures Fund talks about letting the structures emerge through relationships, not assumption, and how trust needs to build in multiple directions - not just between "community" and "funder", but across the entire system.
• Kathleen Kelly at Local Motion shared about using coaching tools to establish emotional safety early, and how often her role has been about holding space for discomfort, uncertainty, and reimagining what's possible.
• James Lock reflected on the River Don project and how they chose to keep it informal, allowing relationships to lead and avoid premature legalisation of roles and ownership.

2. Hold space for conflict, don't avoid it

"Name and practise for conflict early. Conflict is normal, but it's important to be prepared to hold it." Kathleen Kelly

Stewards sometimes feel they need to "keep things harmonious" - but there will always be tension and conflict in complex collaborations, and it can be generative, creative and serve to deepen relationships. What matters is having protocols, language and practices to navigate tension before it becomes rupture, and processes for repair where rupture is unavoidable.

• Local Motion co-developed designed alliances and used Deep Democracy practices in each of the 6 places to prepare them to hold tensions generatively and move towards decisions with an awareness of the resistance involved.
• Opus highlighted the need for emotional literacy and the capacity to stay with uncertainty.
• The Regenerative Futures Fund made space for values-driven disagreement as part of their co-design process, which led to fresh insights that could inform the design.

3. Build learning into the system from the start

"The learning is not an output - it is the work." - James Lock, Opus

Complex collaboration is about learning from feedback and then changing from that awareness. Learning is the work. Bake reflection, feedback and documentation into the process from the beginning so that adaptation becomes part of governance. Set aside resources for the time and space needed to make sense across the system.

• James Lock (Opus) stressed that learning infrastructure (check-ins, transparent documentation, reflexivity) is core to sustaining collaboration. Opus make learning and meta-reflection part of the design, not an afterthought.
• POP used iterative sensemaking and open learning spaces to share insights as they emerged.
• LocalMotion co-designed their learning approach with local communities and funders.
• Annette Dhami described a risk of centralising learning and design into the steward's role. Even in contexts with capacity and timeline constraints, it's worth considering that over-centralisation here can accidentally incapacitate the group later on.

4. Practise and iterate

Don't wait until everything is figured out. Start with "just enough" governance or structure and iterate. Try things in low-stakes ways - learning by doing is how this work grows. Collaborators need just enough scaffolding to orient and feel protected, without over-designing governance too early.

• Kathleen Kelly (Local Motion) described the art of creating "gentle slopes" - not overwhelming people with structure but offering enough to support practice.
• POP used contracts carefully, only where necessary to protect relationships without undermining them.

5. Make the invisible visible

"Much of the work was invisible: building alignment with funders, calming anxieties, and pacing the project to protect relationships." - Leah Black, RFF

Much of the work that sustains collaboration is hidden - emotional labour, informal care, political negotiation, and cultural weaving. This happens at multiple levels; a steward may work with a funder's trustees, CEO, directors and staff teams. Stewards play a vital role in surfacing, valuing and naming this invisible work so that it can be recognised, shared and supported.

• Leah Black (RFF) spoke about the invisible labour of building alignment with funders, calming anxieties, and pacing the project to protect relationships.
• Kathleen Kelly (Local Motion) described holding emotional safety and supporting people through discomfort as central but often unseen parts of her role.
• POP highlighted that the relational glue is exhausting to hold when it goes unacknowledged or unsupported.